National Maritime Museum websites use cookies to improve your website experience and also for statistical purposes. Unless you modify your browser settings, using any of the NMM websites will result in the storage of cookies on your device. You can limit or block cookie files by modifying your Internet browser settings.

The Musicians of the world

Message to Webmaster

Adres e-mail:

Your Message:

The music has accompanied people from the very beginning and sculpture is probably the oldest artwork. The exhibitions shows the wooden sculptures chosen from the collection "The Musicians of the world" which includes about 400 artefacts from most of the world – from Ecuador to Indonesia. The main theme are wooden characters of musicians playing the unusual instruments.

The Mexico sculptures from the State of Oaxaca are fantastic statues of people with animal heads made in the alebrije style. Africa isrepresented by the east and west coasts objects of art. Figurines engraved in wood are playing the kora and djembe instruments. The collections also includes the ujama and shetani style pieces of art which were made by the Makonde tribe from Tanzania. Asia is represented, inter alia, by the characteristic, decorated with pieces of glass, sculptures from Thailand and Burma as well as fine statues of gods from India. The merry bands with expressive faces made in the anri German and Italian style represent Europe.

The Polish collection includes works made in almost all regions of Poland - from Bieszczady to Pomerania, with the main popular sculpture centers placed by Kutno and Łuków. Some of works were made to order by the collection's owner, for example a band in Hutsul outfits playing typical Bieszczady instruments such as hurdy-gurdy or cimbalom.

The owner of the whole collection is Leszek Dylik from Gdańsk who buys popular sculptures from over a dozen years. He finds them on fairs, internet stocks, or buys the artisan works from creators themselves. He dreams of preserving such valuable objects as well as the memory of its creators, but his greatest whish is to build a permanent professional gallery of the popular sculpture showing the musicians from different regions and cultures of the world.

The supplement to the collection is, modest for now, a group of a dozen of chordophones, mostly from Asia, Africa and Europe, among which there are such instruments as dirluba from India, biwa from China, sarangi from Nepal or oud from Egipt and saz from Turkey.